Colleges and universities are being challenged to transform the way they deliver their traditional roles of teaching and research. Today’s education leaders are capitalizing on new technologies to enable innovative instructional and research models that are shaping the future of higher education. Please join us on March 19 (Americas and EMEA) and March 20 (Asia-Pacific), for the Cisco Virtual Forum for Education Leaders, to hear directly from innovative educators who are at the leading edge of reinventing higher education.

With escalating travel costs and limited budgets, professors, IT staff and administrative leaders have limited opportunities to attend global conferences. That is why Cisco is pleased to present this free global conference that higher education leaders can attend from the convenience of their desktop or mobile device.

The agenda features a breakout track dedicated to higher education, with 4 dynamic sessions by 6 distinguished speakers, that will focus on innovative strategies and practical solutions for next generation teaching and research.

It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, but remember a couple of months ago when we were all reading articles like “5 ways technology will impact higher ed in 2013” about trends to watch in 2013? Well, at the beginning of the year, I highlighted four of those high-impact trends educators should be on the lookout for. Three of those trends were around the rise of the cloud, personal devices and flipped teaching, but one trend I’m really excited about is that of hybrid learning.

As new technologies begin to be used across campuses, educators are often challenged to find ways to best integrate the old with the new. As John Chambers recently said in his post around the Internet of Everything, “My perspective is that it’s best to accept change as inevitable – to embrace it, lead it, and use it to shape desired outcomes,” and that’s exactly what I think will happen with hybrid learning. Read More »

If you were not able you visit with us in Denver, take a look at the following videos and resources for more information on the demos we featured in the Cisco booth.

Mobile Collaboration with WebEx Web Conferencing

Teach, learn and collaborate from anywhere with WebEx on your iPhone, iPad or Android device. Meet face-to-face with new 2-way group video. Listen as Nancy Crouch, Deputy CIO, details how Wake Forest University extended collaboration with a campus-wide WebEx license.

Collaborative learning was on display this week at Educause 2012 in Denver. As colleges and universities are embracing technology to enable more dynamic teaching and learning, inside and outside of the classroom, it is clear that the “stale, passive lecture model” is transforming to a collaborative model of instruction.

A just published eCampus News special report on collaborative learning details how universities such as Duke, San Jose State University, Case Western, and West Texas A&M are embracing video, flipped learning and social collaboration platforms, like Cisco’s recently announced WebEx Social for Higher Education, to help faculty and students interact “in much richer ways’.

In a recent survey of college students and young professionals, 40 percent said they would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility with regard to device choice, social media access, and mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility.

To meet the needs of their students and faculty, most colleges and universities have employed a BYOD strategy on some level for years. However, the evolving expectations of flexibility and freedom of access present new challenges and opportunities for higher education institutions and their IT departments. The proliferation of mobile devices and the exponential increase in traffic from video and other rich media applications will place ever-increasing demands on a university’s network infrastructure. Universities not only need to support the requirements of today; they need to anticipate and plan for future requirements so they can scale the network in a prudent and cost-effective way.

Click on the video below to watch my VLOG on Taking a Strategic Approach to BYOD.

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